The Best Mother's Day Gift...

Oh the joy of Mother's Day. Who knew it could be so stressful! It seems as though the best things in life do take time and effort. This was the same for the Mother's Day gift my students made last week.

This is the picture I chose to transfer onto wood. It is a photo of my mom, sister and myself.

This year for Mother's Day gifts, my students and I opted to be adventurous. Well, I made the choice for them even though I did ask for their opinion. We made wooden pictures that turned out beautifully, for the most part, but caused me a lot of stress. Why was it stressful? As a teacher I strive to help my students find success. Usually I am able to provide opportunities for them to find success. With this project, I had no control. Some pictures came off clearly, while others were really scratched.
You may not have any idea what I am talking about, so I have included the video where I got the idea. It explains the entire process in a very simple, straight forward way.

The materials I used are as follows:

• 2x6 blocks of wood (My husband and I are in the process of remodeling a house, so we had a bunch of 2x6 boards lying around.)
• 80 grit and 150 grit sandpaper  
• pictures of students with their moms
• Mod Podge (found at Michaels)
• medium gel gloss (found at Michaels)

I first tried it out a few times for myself. I found that one of the the ink from one of the photocopiers in my school worked better than the other one. I also discovered that sanding the surface with 120 or 150 grit sandpaper was helpful, but I am not convinced it made that much of a difference.
In the end the students were so pleased. Only one didn't turn out, even after we tried a second time. For this student, I printed a coloured version of her photo and we glued it on the wood and painted mod podge over it.

Here are few samples of my student's work.